This has the feel of the leadup to the Gary Kasparov vs. IBM's "Deep Blue" chess matchup.
"Deep Blue" was a chess playing computer and it's development began in 1985 under the name "Chip Test" at Carnegie Melon University.
In 1986 it was capable of 50,000 moves/second. At the North American Computer Chess Championships, it lost its first two rounds, but finished with an even score.
At the same meet a year later in 1987, ChipTest-M won with a 4-0 sweep and was capable of 720,000 positions/second.
Deep Thought-0.01 was created in May 1988 and the version 0.02 in November the same year.
With the "0.02" dropped from its name, "Deep Thought" won the WORLD Computer Chess Championships with a perfect 5-0 score in 1989. In 1989 "Deep Thought" had a rating of 2551 by United States Chess Federation ranking standards. In 1989 IBM-Research brought the project in house.
In 1994 Deep Though-2 won the North American Computer Chess Championships for the 5th time with a rating of 2600. IIRC this is where IBM was the sponsor. Some engineers who designed Deep Thought also worked in the design of Deep Thought 2.
Its algorithms were quite simple evaluation functions, but it could examine half a billion chess positions per move in tournament games, which is sufficient to reach depth of 10 or 11 moves ahead in complex positions.
Using the technique of
singular extensions it could also follow lines of forced moves that reach even further, which is how it once found a checkmate in 37 moves.
In 1995 "Deep Blue prototype" (actually
Deep Thought II, renamed for PR reasons) played in the 8th World Computer Chess Tournament. In the end of the championship Deep Blue prototype was tied for second place with the computer program Junior while Junior was running on a personal computer
Now we have the Kasparov matches.
The first match began on 10 February 1996, in which Deep Blue became the first machine to win over a reigning world chess champion, under regular time controls. However, Kasparov won three and drew two of the following five games, beating Deep Blue by a score of 4–2 (wins count 1 point, draws count ½ point). The match concluded on 17 February 1996.
Deep Blue was then heavily upgraded (unofficially nicknamed "Deeper Blue")and played Kasparov again in May 1997, winning the six-game rematch 3½–2½, ending on 11 May. Deep Blue won the deciding
game six after Kasparov made a mistake in the opening, becoming the first computer system to defeat a reigning world champion in a match under standard chess tournament time controls.
Kasparov accused IBM of cheating, wanted a rematch, but IBM refused and quickly retired "Deep Blue".
We should all be OK so long as SkyNet never gains "self-awareness".(think of the Terminator series of movies)
Here's a pic Deep Blue on display at the Computer History Museum.
